In the field of food and beverage packaging, there is an increasingly high demand for quality assurance. More specifically, it is very important to provide means for ensuring that the product has not been tampered with at any stage between the initial packaging and final consumption by the user. A variety of tamper-evident closures have been developed to meet this need.
The current and most widely used closures for containers, such as beverage containers, tend to come completely off from the container when unscrewed and can be lost before the contents are consumed. Once lost, re-closure of the partially full container is no longer possible. Some closures have been developed as two part closures, with a lower portion that is connected to both the container and a top sealing portion, thereby preventing loss of the top portion. However, the lower portion, which is fixed to the container proximate a mouth of the container, tends to be cumbersome and can get in the way of the consumers lips when the beverage is being consumed.
To provide tamper evidence, closures are often sealed to the container by a sealing membrane which must be separately discarded once the container is opened. In the case of two part closures, the top portion is often sealed to the lower portion, the seal generally being breakable through the action of opening the container. However, in many cases, breaking the seal involves holding the lower portion in place while turning or flipping open the top portion, making it quite awkward to use. As well, proximity of the lower portion to the mouth of the container makes consumption difficult.
U.S. Pat. No. 6,253,937 (Anderson) discloses a two-part snap-top closure that screws onto the neck of a bottle opening. There is no disclosure of sealing the lower portion to the top portion or rotating the entire cap to separate the lower portion from the upper portion. As well, in the reference the two parts of the closure are required to snap fit with each other. U.S. Pat. No. 6,530,493 and U.S. Application 2001/0035389 are related to the Anderson reference.
U.S. Pat. No. 6,234,334 (Suarez) teaches a two part cap having an arrangement in which the parts snap to each other rather than to a lip of the container. This device completely covers the mouth of the container and requires that an additional spout means be formed into the closure.
U.S. Pat. No. 5,755,352 (Wojcik et. al) also teaches that the two parts of the cap snap to each other and there is no teaching of rotation of the lower part to cause separation from the upper part. The lower part is engaged to the container neck, so that the upper part and lower part remain near the mouth of the container when the beverage is consumed.
U.S. Pat. No. 4,856,667 discloses a neck sealing arrangement, but it does not specifically relate to a two-part cap.
U.S. Pat. No. 5,813,553 discloses a multiple-part cap but is principally concerned with a tamper-evident construction and does not provide means by which the closure can remain connected to the container, to prevent loss of the closure.
Finally, British Patent 2,367,802 discloses a device for carrying a bottle and consists of two parts that snap-fit together.
It is therefore greatly desired to develop a closure device for a container that is tamper-evident, while also connecting the closure to the container and allowing the closure device to be moved sufficiently out of the way to allow the users mouth to engage the container.